SPOKANE, WASHINGTON--Friday's Associated Press reported that
Spokane County Medical Examiner Sally Aiken has determined that a plastic mask
with a small breathing hole, which officers had placed over the mouth of Otto
Zehm to keep him from spitting on them, did not contribute to his death.

Prosecutor Steve Tucker is investigating the conduct of seven Spokane
Police officers involved in the fatal arrest, beating, and hogtie restraint of
Zehm. He asked Aiken to review the autopsy after it was suggested that the
plastic oxygen mask, which an officer had obtained from a paramedic, might have
restricted Zehm's breathing during the March 18 confrontation.

Aiken said she had contacted experts in Michigan who found that similar
masks did not restrict airflow even for people walking on treadmills.

Aiken added that her initial determination still stands, that the
innocent man's death was a homicide -- the result of a heart attack "while
restrained in a prone position for excited delirium".

Tucker is currently waiting for a final review of videos taken from
surveillance cameras at the Zip Trip convenience store where Zehm, 35, who
reportedly had a mental disability and mental illness, was wrestled to the
floor, beaten with nightsticks, zapped with Taser stun guns, and then
restrained for several minutes on his stomach with his wrists and legs bound
behind his back.

He died two days later at a local hospital.

Investigators have since learned that officers were acting on a false
report of a robbery when they went to arrest Zehm.